


Face Your Future

by FudgingPastry



Series: That God AU [11]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Gen, death mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 14:01:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4103542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FudgingPastry/pseuds/FudgingPastry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I wonder what it's like to die." Ravele doesn’t look at you; she keeps smiling up at the sun as if she had just commented on how nice the weather was. You wait for her to continue, but she doesn’t say a word.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Face Your Future

**Author's Note:**

> Ravele is a name for Beforus Aradia. The name is used by permission of the creator of the name (littlebbredbird). Please do not use it without asking first.

“I wonder what it’s like to die.”

Your head spins around so fast you’re sure your neck nearly snaps in two. Ravele doesn’t look at you; she keeps smiling up at the sun as if she had just commented on how nice the weather was. You wait for her to continue, but she doesn’t say a word.

“I thought,” you venture, adjusting your shades and hoping it looks like you really don’t care. “That you’ve already died. You know, your other cycles? At least, I thought that Damara said ‘Screw you’ to the world and fucked right off, but maybe I’m wrong?” She laughs at your comment and you hear a little of the little chimes in her voice you once heard when you actually managed to make Damara laugh. Her laughter does nothing to answer your question and you suck in your bottom lip, annoyed. You wait a while and she finally does answer you.

“Yes, Dave. I have changed through my cycles and I had to ‘die’ for that to happen.” Her laughter had died off, but she now has this smile that constantly sits on her face like your shades do. It’s the one where you know that she knows so much more than you do. “But what I mean is physically dying. Returning to the aether and staying there. That’s what I mean by dying. Not what changing through my cycles mean.” You’re confused and she knows it and she laughs as you shake your head. When she speaks again, her voice is a cacophony of four different pitches.

“After all, Dave. I am still here.”

“You’ve gotta stop doing that. Scares the half-godly shit out of me.” As you shudder, her grin broadens and you have to look away from her and ignore the shiver that runs down your spine. You really don’t understand how she’s able to do that, even though she’s explained it to you many times. You know that some of the gods can switch in between their cycles – Captor does it at least twice every time you see em. You think that you can’t wrap your head around it because you don’t do cycles. You’ve been Dave Strider for all your lifetime and that’s gotta be nearing at least two millennia by now.

To be honest, you really don’t understand the mechanics of the cycles. After all, Jade and Rose are gods, but they don’t do cycles. Megido’s not a god and she cycles. Jade, Rose, and Leijon used to be human and now they’re gods, but Leijon’s the only one who cycles. Where does that leave you? You have no fucking clue and that whole clusterfuck is making your head spin like a particularly bad time jump. Megido tells you not to worry about it and—

“You know I’m right, Dave.” You jump in surprise and nearly fall off the rock you were sitting on when Ravele speaks. “You were talking to yourself for a bit there. It had a bit of a nice rhythm for a while.” She hums a little and you lay down on the rock, staring at the sky.

“Don’t worry about who cycles and who doesn’t; it really doesn’t matter in the scope of things. Makara will always be Makara, no matter if it’s Thavma, Kurloz, Gamzee, or Katisk. You’ve met Katisk already, right? Yeah, you know. Time jumps.” You nod. The time jumps can make things confusing on who you’ve met or haven’t yet. She continues speaking, her face raised towards the sun.

“It may happen and it may not. Be happy, sad, angry, or neutral. It doesn’t matter. I may never know a true return to aether and it does make me sad, but only a little. I like to think that it’s not an adventure the Muse has planned for me. Maybe it’s not an adventure she has for you either. I do think she’s got some big adventure for you, Dave.”

“That’s a nice sentiment there, but I think you’re forgetting one pretty important thing: I know what’s gonna happen and it’s definitely not some big adventure.” Your voice turns bitter and it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Ravele doesn’t stop smiling. “Did you forget what I lived through? Did you forget that I ran like a coward away from that mess? And for what? To try and prevent that from happening? Big whoop. It’ll happen no matter what I do so don’t you dare tell me that I have some big adventure ahead of me! I’m over a millennium old, maybe two millennia! There is _nothing_ left for me back then.”

While you speak, you jump to your feet and you nearly end up shouting at her. Now, as your anger comes out of you in a rush, you fall back on your ass. You pull your shades off your face and rub your eyes. When you look back at her, she isn’t smiling.

“Did you ever go back? Did you go past that moment? I know you can control the jumps better now. Did you see what happens after that moment?” She asks, pursing her lips.

“Why would I go back? There’s nothing left back then.” You sigh, defeated. She scoots closer to you and she wraps her hands around the hand holding your shades.

“You’re there. You’re there during that moment and then you’re not. There’s young Dave absolutely terrified of what’s about to happen that he jumps back.”

“Like a coward,” you retort. She frowns.

“He jumps back to fix what went wrong.” Her voice is firm and her grip tightens. “He doesn’t yet know that what he goes back to fix is exactly what happened in the first place – Dave, listen to me. He sees himself die hundreds of times because he thinks that he can change the path this story is going to take. But it doesn’t work like that. You think this is the past, but each jump you take, even if you go back further and further, it’s still your future that you’re facing. You’ll run out of new times you can jump into; you have to go back eventually. We all do.”

You swallow nervously and she lets go of your hand. You bring your shades up to your face, but before you put them on, you ask her one last question.

“You know what I’m going to find there, don’t you?”

She only grins at you.


End file.
